Choosing Students
The process of choosing students can be a difficult one. It is best to partner with your international department or school administrators to come up with a systematic process to ensure a fair and equitable selection. Luckily, for me, my school had a tried, tested and true system in place.
Promote the trip: Once the proposal is accepted and travel dates are confirmed, it is time to promote the trip to potential students. Use a simple enticing graphic from the country that you'll be travelling to. Share the trip location and dates with students. Include which students are eligible to apply, where they should go for details and when the deadline to apply is.
We leveraged every media channel we had to share this information with our students. We shared it in our LMS, on our school social media sites (Facebook, Instagram), talked about it in classes and emailed all faculty to ask them to speak about it too.
Photo by S. Bramwell
Application Process: Students were encouraged to visit our school's Services and Global Experiences website where they were able to log in and begin the application process. The process required students to enter their school details to ensure they were eligible such as being in the correct program and having a qualifying GPA. Students also had to put in some effort and thought. They needed to submit a letter of intent explaining why they wanted to go on this travel abroad opportunity and how they felt this opportunity would enhance their well-being as a student and beyond.
Photo by Helloquence on Unsplash
Photo by You X Ventures on Unsplash
Interview Process: The interview process was fascinating. I relied heavily on my international department for guidance and found that they looked for different variables than I did as a faculty member. As a faculty, I was interested in who would gain the most from the experience and what each individual wanted to gain from the experience. My international department colleagues were more attentive to which students had which strengths and thus worked on creating a balanced travel group.
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Our interview process includes a panel of interviewers and group interviews. The interviewers consisted of the traveling faculty and staff from the international department. Group interviews worked really well as it gave the students an opportunity to meet other potential students whom they might be traveling with and gave us an opportunity to see how well they interacted together.
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Group interviews began with a team challenge scenario. The scenario was specific to the challenges of the region we were to travel to. We wanted to assess the teamwork of the group, their considerations for international relations and concerns and their resiliency and ability to adapt.
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Following the group interviews, we each took turns asking each individual student questions. We had a question bank of questions broken down into various categories including questions on preparing for future careers, topics related to the course content on the trip, teamwork and corporation and stress management and problem solving. The group environment took some of the stress off of one-on-one interviews and students were able to build on the answers of previous students.
Notification Process: Once the students were chosen, they were sent congratulatory emails with next steps. They had to confirm their acceptance into the travel program within so many days of them being chosen. Students also had to ensure that they were able to get medical clearance to travel and any necessary visas and travel documents as soon as possible.
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Students who were not successful were sent an email notifying them that they had been wait listed. I didn't think much of the wait list, thinking to myself 'who would drop out of the trip once accepted?'. To my surprise, one of our first choice students was not able to obtain her travel documents and we ended up using our waitlist.
Photo by S. Bramwell